I went to see SEASON OF THE WITCH yesterday, and something struck me. What the hell has happened to fight scenes in movies?
Watch...hell, any action movie from the '80s or earlier, even into the '90s. You can see what happens! Every shot choreographed, filmed in real-time so you can follow the fight.
Watching SEASON OF THE WITCH, the fight scenes in the opening montage are in that goofy 300-style "slow everything down, then SPEED IT UP TO EMPHASIZE THE HITS!" combat. But the rest of the fights are presented via a series of lightning quick cuts - three seconds of Nicolas Cage hitting someone, three seconds of Ron Perlman hitting someone, three seconds of Cage getting hit and hit back, three seconds of Perlman...it's goddamn disorienting, and I'm sick of it.
Anybody else?
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This has been going on for a while now, and I agree: it's BS. Lazy, MTV-style filmaking that leaves me with no idea what is happening, who is winning, etc. One of these days this quick-fire editing is going to give me a seizure.
ReplyDeleteI've taken to using the phrase "epileptic lemur editing" for this MTV crap.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it also ruined The Expendables which should have been a return to form. The best fight scenes these days seem to be in indie action films like Broken Path, Contour and (to shamelessly plug something I worked on) 10 Dead Men. So if you don't mind compromising big budgets and star names you can still see some awesome action choreography.
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